So a student over at Stanford wrote this beautiful satirical piece about the war on terror. I'm putting a copy inside an LJ cut, but you can also access it directly here. It's also wanked here. Is it messed up that I get some of my news from Fandom_Wank?

It’s tough being a terrorist these days. Not only do citizens regularly leave their homes without gas masks, but they even continue to enter skyscrapers and fly in commercial aircrafts with reckless abandon. And while none of your carefully planned, anti-infidel violence has sparked a whit of fear among the U.S. public, some badly drawn Danish cartoons have your own people up in arms. Sadly, it seems that the terrorist cause is lost on the masses in this age of poor citizenship and apathetic ignorance. Do not fret though — there is still hope for those who wish to strike fear and loathing in the hearts of freedom-lovers everywhere (except in Las Vegas, they already have enough of that there).

If Al Qaeda really wanted to piss people off, the first step would be to bomb Disneyland. If I were a kid and I found out that the terrorists had just bombed the living shit out of Mickey Mouse, I would be screaming at my parents to hand me an AK-47 and ship me to Iraq (which is, I hear, where all the terrorists live). If you are honest with yourself, you too will admit that you care much more about Disneyland than you ever did about the World Trade Center. If you are an economics major and think otherwise, consider the fact that there are many financial centers all around the globe, but there is only one “Happiest Place on Earth.”

Even when people visited New York City, going to the World Trade Center was never really that high on the list of things to do — more quintessential NYC activities like watching a Broadway musical or buying cocaine always took precedence. Going to Disneyland, on the other hand, is some sort of American rite of passage. As a child, you were a huge loser if you hadn’t taken your picture with an illegal immigrant hiding from the deportation authorities in a cartoon mouse suit. Bombing Disneyland would show the American people that the terrorists mean business.

But even the most shocking of news stories lose their impact over time and, after all, Universal Studios and Six Flags hold a special place in the hearts of the United States as well. The terrorists will have to follow up the bombing with a media stunt guaranteed to spark outrage.

The obvious next step, then, would be to hold a gay marriage between two prominent terrorists. Ideally, Al Qaeda would break Saddam Hussein out of prison to get him hitched with Osama Bin Laden, but anyone who is vaguely Middle Eastern and has a beard should do. The wedding guest list should include Elton John, Boy George, and those five guys from “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” Phallic objects should feature prominently in the wedding decorations and clips from “Brokeback Mountain” should play continuously in the background. No lesbians, though — people actually like lesbians.

With Republicans now in control of all three branches of government (not that separation of powers would ever stop the GOP), such a stunt should instantly result in a declaration of the War Against the Gay Terror. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy will be abolished, since queers everywhere are now enemy combatants spying for the other side, and soldiers will be carefully monitored for limp wrists and pink clothing. San Francisco will secede from the Union in protest and the U.S. embassy in Australia will place pressure on the Australian government to investigate the Electric Six for their disturbing threats to “put something in you at the gay bar.”

Just when international tension is running at fever pitch, the terrorists should move in with their piece de resistance — kidnap J.K. Rowling and hold her hostage. It’s the perfect climax for this unfortunate series of events. The world has gradually nursed a cancerous addiction to Harry Potter over the last decade, and tension is running high as the entire world awaits the seventh chronicle with bated breath. When the terrorists release footage of Rowling gagged and tied to a chair, surrounded by vaguely Middle Eastern-looking men carrying large firearms, blood will run in the streets as Potter fans accidentally stab each other while waving plastic wands in an attempt to curse the terrorists to death. Meanwhile, soldiers at the front, terrified that they’ll die before Ron gets a chance to pork Hermione, will lay down their arms, and fighting will come to a standstill until Rowling is safely recovered. Angry citizens throughout the United States and the United Kingdom will rally at their capitals, demanding concessions to all terrorist demands.

Of course, support for Rowling’s return wouldn’t exist everywhere. For example, I’m guessing that the French and the former Soviet states are none too thrilled that the only people of their nationalities to appear in the series got their asses handed to them on a plate in “The Goblet of Fire.” No one in China would really care that Rowling was gone, since they’d always have fake copies of the seventh book written by bootleg authors attempting to make a few bucks. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in China already has a copy of an early draft of the seventh book hidden in a storehouse somewhere. Chinese pirates are just good like that.

Still, that’s two members of the United Nations Security Council, and with the additional pressure of other states, I’m sure the United Nations would be glad to establish a new Muslim world order. I don’t know how Kofi Annan would feel about this entire affair, but the fact that Harry Potter has more than one token black friend should make him feel better about changing United Nations policy to accommodate the terrorists’ victory over the free world.

The wank is that The Leaky Cauldron posted an editorial condemning this article. I like TLC, and lord knows I LOVE Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling, but...good lord, Leaky, pull the stick out of your ass! It's a satire! You acknowledge this, yet complain about the article anyway. I think it's hilarious. Can't you take a fucking joke? Apparently not. Guess you're no fan of Jonathan Swift, then, either.

It still bothers me. I don't care that it's satire. Bombing Disneyland and kidnapping JKR just aren't amusing on any level. Melissa took it a bit too far, but it was well within her own rights to do that. I'm not saying that she should have done it and won't regret it later on. She might. Leaky has 250-ish comments about this article, and people are taking both sides. I'm going to have to agree with most of them that whoever wrote this was not any sort of literary genius.

We'll have to agree to disagree, then. :) I see this type of piece as a literary version of Riddikulus: Laughter is the only way to kill fear. And while the writer may or may not be a literary genius (I haven't read any of his other stories or essays, so I have nothing by which to judge his overall abilities), I think this essay was actually quite sophisticated, as it's an excellent satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Which everyone was up in arms about, but is now taught as a form of satirical brilliance in high schools (or, at least, was when I was in high school in the early 1990s).

Reading the article again, I just think that the writer was being an idiot. Not well written, not that funny...just stupid. The whole JKR thing...he could have used something else. And yes, bombing Disneyland would scare millions of children for life. Not funny. Some dumb college kid who thinks he has a sense of humor.

I definitely don't think it's as bad as some people are acting - it was SATIRE, guys. Sa. Tire.

That said... the article was still of bad taste. Jonathan Swift came near to going too far, and this article definitely did. There's a difference between using something that could never happen and something that just happened. It's about knowing when to say something. There's times where there isn't a time and place for things.

Still, I don't think this boy was being dangerous or anything. Just careless.

But if we can't laugh at ourselves, then we truly have reached the depths of despair, you know? And honestly, I really don't think Osama bin Laden is going to read this article and think, "Dag, yo, Chris Lin at Stanford has a kickass suggestion, man! Kidnapping JK Rowling is the only way we're going to win the war against the infidels! Achmed, get me the batphone so I can put this plan in motion!"

I think JournalFen user marlo said it best in this exchange (which can be found here:

Oh yes, because Terrorists are going to kidnap an author just because a satire article gave them the idea.

If they were going to kidnap someone... it sure as hell wouldn't be JKR or any other author or that matter. There are way more important people in the world than an author.

marlo: If it were that simple, I'd just start up an online news site called "The Terrorists Should Kidnap Ann Coulter," and after its rousing success, I'd launch spinoffs: "It'd Be a Hoot If The Terrorists Beat The Crap Out Of The Entire Church Of Scientology," and "C'mon, Terrorists! Call A Jihad On Anne Rice, Already!"

I thought it was funny, especially the *plastic wands* papragraph, it was the liveliest and most Swiftian bit of it. It might not be literary genius, but it's witty and not the sort of writing I could ever do, so I admire it. Thanks!